Antiwar.com Blog

According to a Washington-based intelligence newsletter Defense and Foreign Affairs, Bosnia’s viceroy “Paddy” Ashdown’s eagerness to support his late friend Alija Izetbegovic resulted in a major blow to anti-terrorism intelligence efforts on the eve of the Athens Olympics. Says DFA:

“Significantly, it was understood to be SFOR leadership which caused the Bosnia-Herzegovina ‘High Representative,’ Paddy Ashdown, to attempt a face-saving move in June 2004 which effectively reversed his decision of April 20, 2004, to arbitrarily remove the Head of the [Serb Republic] Secretariat for Cooperation with the [ICTY], Dejan Miletic.
Mr Miletic had been removed for refusing to sign off on a statement which essentially — at Ashdown’s insistence — accepted responsibility for the so-called ‘Srebrenica Massacre’ of 1995. The Secretariat had provided substantial evidence contradicting Ashdown’s totally unsubstantiated claims about the incident.
SFOR officials subsequently told the Office of the High Representative that this move had dealt a major blow to counter-terrorism intelligence in Bosnia-Herzegovina at a critical time.” Continue reading “Viceroy’s vendetta hurt anti-terror efforts?”

Be sure to check out Gene Callahan’s blog. I’m a little hesitant to promote a blog so narrowly fixated on “philosophy, religion, theology, economics, sociology, history, physics, mathematics, politics, current events, computers, sports, art, culture, programming languages, nightlife, travel, artificial intelligence, ethics, food, and secret sex tips gleaned from my years spent with various Himalayan masters,” but I like Gene, so deal with it.

From (appropriately) WorldNetDaily:

President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration. …

The panel found that “despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed” and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for “consumers of all ages,” including preschool children. …

The commission recommended that the screening be linked with “treatment and supports,” including “state-of-the-art treatments” using “specific medications for specific conditions.” …

Call me crazy, but didn’t I predict all this?

Gene Healy finds this long lost glimpse into the sick mind of Fred Barnes:

In an essay in the Feb. 24 [1997] Weekly Standard, Barnes laments the current “ennui” in Washington and confesses his longings for the glory days of old — you know, the Golden Age commonly known as “the Bush administration.” “The last great moment in Washington was Desert Storm,” Barnes writes, with an almost audible sigh. “It was exciting to follow and write about … Every press conference, I watched. Desert Storm was all I thought about or talked about. My stories concentrated on President Bush’s heroic role in the war. As best I recall, he wasn’t in a funk, not even for a single fleeting moment.”

Via Salon.

The Erez Industrial Zone in Gaza is notorious as a borderline industrial slave labor camp (on occupied land), though of course its creation has long been touted as a supreme act of benevolence by Israel, which of course wishes only to show how much it wants friendship and
cooperation with the Palestinians. Erez is one of the last places where Gazans can earn a few shekels so that they don’t starve to death, though it is not by choice that they work there. Now its factories are closing and moving to Israel, AP and AFP report.

Anyone who has bothered to read the 4-stage “disengagement” plan by Sharon will also note that Israel hopes to phase out having any workers from Gaza enter Israel in the future – another act of benevolence, no doubt, though I haven’t heard how this is going to be presented to the media to highlight Israel’s desire for peace.

Meanwhile, with a Rafah Sister City Project proposal before the Madison city council, Kavanna — “the progressive Jewish voice” on the UW Campus — has suggested in its oozingly liberal way that a better choice for a sister city than Rafah (a terrorists’ nest) would be the Erez Industrial Zone, since it displays such cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis.

Now that the Erez “island of sanity” option has been precluded, maybe the “progressive Jewish voice” on campus will break ranks with the fear exploiters (e.g., the Madison Jewish Community Council, Bush, Sharon) and join the many Jews who are supporting the Rafah project.

Christopher Hitchens apparently ran out of booze and got mad, launching a vicious 4298 word attack on Michael Moore, and his new flick Fahrenheit 9/11 – and a defence of the Iraq war. Hitchens believes that, if not for the good ol’ USA, Hussein would have systematically massacred every Iraqi, even to the last child. Hitchens’s world – and the neocons’ – is one where the entire non-democratic world is populated by hideous, unstoppable totalitarians, endlessly evil, endlessly resourceful. The powerless masses of these nations being unable to stop them, only Uncle Sam can. The world is more complex in the average comic book. Stare very closely into Hitchens’s eyes and you’ll see a tiny American flag blowing in the vapors of his mind – perhaps that’s also what he sees.

Hitchens accuses Moore of making an anti-war propaganda flick, not an “even-handed” one. What a shock! That was Moore’s purpose from the start, and it’s a valid one. As Roger Ebert pointed out recently:

“Most documentaries, especially the best ones, have an opinion and argue for it. Even those that pretend to be objective reflect the filmmaker’s point of view. Moviegoers should observe the bias, take it into account and decide if the film supports it or not.”

With that in mind, here’s Hitchens:

“At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective.”

Translation: At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to agree with Christopher Hitchens. Why should Moore make an effort to take the War Party’s side? He thinks it’s disastrously wrong, and he’s not trying to report on history, he’s making a documentary. Hitchens has some advice for the flick’s potential audience:

“By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.
However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point.”

I shall fact check the dreary ol “Hitch” rant. Hitchens criticizes Moore for pointing out that Bush spent a good deal of his time until 9/11 on vacation, and asks “Isn’t he [Bush] supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?”

No, he isn’t. He’s a nincompoop, and this website has already gone into laborious detail about who the war planners are.
Hitchens may also be misrepresenting what may be an equivocal moment captured on video, of Bush just after he’s learned of the second plane crashing into the WTC. Hitchens writes:

“Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11.” That’s not what Ebert thought. He wrote:

“The look on his face as he reads the book, knowing what he knows, is disquieting.” Continue reading “Hitchens Rant”